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Many states use systems of merit-based judicial selection for supreme court appointments. Under "merit selection," an independent commission screens judicial candidates before the governor makes a final appointment. Proponents of these systems claim that by limiting gubernatorial influence over the selection process, merit selection protects judicial independence from partisan intrusion. This study evaluates such claims by comparing the recent ideological voting behavior of judges appointed by Republican and Democratic governors in three states. Those states, Kansas, Missouri, and Colorado, use three different types of merit selection--barcontrolled, hybrid, and governor-controlled, respectively--that grant the governor varying degrees of influence over the judicial selection process. This study finds the largest gap between the voting behavior of Republican- and Democratic-appointed judges in Colorado and the smallest gap in Kansas, with Missouri falling in between. These results show how increased gubernatorial influence over the judicial selection process translates into a judiciary that is more ideologically polarized. This ideological polarization limits judicial independence but is indicative of greater democratic control, as exercised by the popularly elected governor, over the state judiciary. In relative terms, Colorado maximizes political accountability, Kansas maximizes political independence, and Missouri strikes a balance between the two goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are leaders held accountable for inherited conditions, and does accountability increase with time in office? I combine hundreds of opinion polls to test how new presidents are rewarded or punished for current economic perceptions, and how these judgments evolve over time. I find the economy influences voter evaluations in a president's first year, that it influences evaluations more so in the second year, and that it does not influence evaluations any more in later years. Surveys of governor approval and state economic conditions yield similar results, as does an original survey experiment exploiting the varying tenure of state governors in the wake of the 2018 elections. While raising questions about voter competence, these findings also suggest leaders have incentives to spread effort more broadly over their terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What has been the response of U.S. governors to the COVID-19 pandemic? In this research note, we explore the determinants of implementing stay-at-home orders, focusing on governors' characteristics in the early stage of the pandemic. In our most conservative estimate, being a Democratic governor increased the probability of implementing a stay-at-home order by more than 50%. Moreover, we found that the probability of implementing a statewide stay-at-home order was about 40% more likely for governors without term limits than governors with term limits. We also found that Democratic governors and governors without term limits were significantly faster to adopt statewide orders than Republican governors and governors with term limits. There is evidence of politics as usual in these unusual times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The partisanship of a policy maker is often noted as correlated with a state government's support for social welfare. However, less attention has been paid to how a governor is able to steer the budget in a manner that reflects her political views. This study assesses how changes in the economy and level of budgetary authority of the governor can jointly condition the effect of a governor's partisanship on the change in social welfare spending. Using the panel data for 49 U.S. states from 1987 to 2014, we examine whether budgetary authority allows governors to respond to an economic contraction in the expected partisan manner. Using a three‐way interaction model, we found that Democratic governors are more likely to increase social welfare funding when the economy contracts, particularly when she has high budgetary authority relative to non‐Democratic counterparts. The results highlight how the state of the economy and institutional constraints jointly condition the budget process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A case study of the Altoona Conference, also known as the Loyal Governors' Conference, held during the U.S. Civil War in Altoona, Pennsylvania, in September 1862 is presented. It examines the relationship between then-U.S. president Abraham Lincoln and loyal U.S. state governors who wished to convince Lincoln to alter his war policies, particularly concerning the possibility of the emancipation of slaves in the U.S.

In recent years, states have had to make drastic cuts to their budgets even as the economy flourished in the wake of the Great Recession. The task of balancing state budgets has always been a formidable one, but recent shifts in revenue sources and their ability to generate reliable funding have made this challenge increasingly common and difficult. Historically, states have viewed budget balancing as a fundamentally legislative obligation and prerogative, which is often delegated to the executive branch in the form of impoundment statutes because of the executive's superior budgeting capabilities. In several states, however, the legislature has either kept the power to balance the budget for itself or has delegated insufficient discretion to the executive, hampering the state's ability to meet its constitutional obligation to balance the budget. Consequently, this Note presents an alternative interpretation of the power to impound. It conceives of impoundment as a shared constitutional power exercisable by either the executive or legislature that can be constrained by statute. This interpretation permits the executive to better leverage its strengths in fiscal matters to resolve budget deficits quickly and efficiently, ensuring that the state meets its constitutional obligation to balance the budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of the institutional power of executives in public budgeting; specifically, how executives change spending on particular budget items. Leveraging extant theories of the policy process concerning preference expression, attention, and institutions, we argue that executives deepen large cuts and boost large increases in budgetary change. The strictures of the budgetary process force trade‐offs for executives in preference expression such that increases to preferred categories typically require decreases in other categories. Literatures in public policy and political representation suggest that all executives would like to express fiscal preferences, thereby contributing to categorical budget oscillations; however, not all executives are created equal. We employ quantile regression to examine whether the institutional strength of governors determine cuts, stasis, and expansion in spending across all budget functions in the American states between 1985 and 2009. Our model includes a host of political and economic variables found in the literature of fiscal policymaking, such as partisanship and divided government. The desire to change policy may be widely shared across executives, but we find that the ability to "top off" categorical increases and bottom out categorical decreases is a function of an executive's capacity to call attention to preferred categories via agenda‐setting power and to secure those changes via veto power. The findings show strong governors are well positioned to influence public policy through the budgetary process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State public child welfare agencies have statutory responsibility for responding to allegations of child maltreatment and providing app­ropriate services. Governors have oversight of the work of the state agencies that provide this func­tion. Consequently, governors can be major policy actors in child wel­fare. When a tragedy occurs with a child in state care, governors often are visible on child welfare issues and a reactive response typically is employed. This raises questions about governors’ attention to child welfare in more routine circumstances. To further understand gover­nors’ attention, we provide an analysis of governors’ state­-of­-the-state addresses in early 2019. Our study used these data to answer two ques­tions: (1) How are governors addressing issues of child welfare? And (2) What other child­-focused issues are governors addressing? We conclude that there is insufficient attention to child maltreatment and other issues affecting child well­being. Consequently, advocates, prac­titioners, and researchers need to enhance efforts to gain governors’ (and other policy­makers’) attention to these issues. We offer ideas on how to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the efforts of California Governors Leland Stanford and John G. Downey and Oregon Governor John Whiteaker to keep their states in the Union during the U.S. Civil War. The author explains Stanford's allegiance to the Republican Party and Downey's allegiance to the Democrats, along with Downey's work in recruiting Union Army troops. Also explained is Whiteaker's pro-slavery stance during the war.

The article discusses the state constitutional law-related implications of power plays by state government legislators and governors across America as of 2019, and it mentions the restoration of constitutional norms in the U.S., as well as American case law involving political actions at the state government level. State constitutions, partisanship, and the rule of law in America are assessed, as well as legislative actions in places such as North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

The article focuses on Kansas Governor Thomas A. Osborn who promoted white colonization of the state in 1872 through the removal of Native American inhabitants and cites the need to recast the mythology of the Osage Border War of 1874-1875 which had clashing versions of related events. Topics include Osborn's policy and political agenda, the public fear fanned by killings of White settlers and Osages, and the emergence of vigilante groups. Also noted is the grasshopper plague in Kansas in 1875.

The article discusses the criminal justice reform which has been a priority among conservative minds over the past years. It states that the federal-criminal-justice efforts have stemmed from the success in the states, more pronounced in red states like Texas and those with conservative governors including Nathan Deal, Nikki Haley and Greg Abbott.

Do immigrants have better labor market outcomes under Democratic governors? By exploiting variations associated with close elections in a regression discontinuity (RD) design applied on gubernatorial elections in 50 states over the last two decades, we find that immigrants are more likely to be employed, work longer hours and more weeks, and have higher earnings under Democratic governors. Results are robust to a number of different specifications, controls, and samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarly preoccupation with presidential power has left another story of executive power largely untold: the rise of American governors. Once virtually powerless figureheads, governors have emerged today as the drivers of state government. On issues from clean energy to voting rights, disaster relief to discrimination, governors regularly exercise their authority in ways that deeply affect millions of people within their home states. And governors' reach extends beyond state borders. Governors leverage their control of state executive branches to shape national policy, mobilizing (or demobilizing) state agencies as a means of supporting or resisting federal actions on immigration, environmental law, healthcare, and more. This Article identifies and evaluates the modern regime of gubernatorial administration. It uncovers how and why governors have gained authority, including powers that Presidents lack, and describes the limited checks on gubernatorial power from state-level institutions. It shows that centralized gubernatorial power not only has significant policy consequences, but also provides a new perspective on several contemporary debates -- regarding executive power, federalism, and local government law. Gubernatorial administration emerges as a promising vehicle for efficacious governing and a new source of state resilience. But concentrated gubernatorial power also creates opportunities for executive overreach, at least in the absence of strong oversight by other institutions, such as state legislatures, courts, media outlets, or civil society -- institutions that may currently lack the capacity or incentives to serve as effective checks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an excerpt from three interviews of former governor of Kansas, Kathleen Mary Sebelius, where she talks about her birth in an Irish Catholic family in Cincinnati, Ohio, her father John Gilligan's involvement in politics and her political career.

Suriname was one of the most emblematic slave societies of the Atlantic world and saw a court system in which a Governing Council functioned simultaneously as political council to the governor, as a criminal court and also elected the Civil Court. Studies of the practice of the Governing Council have been limited to a small number of spectacularly brutal cases canonised by abolitionist campaigners. This article reconstructs how various forums for arbitration related to the Governing Council, and how this relationship changed by comparing its practices across the long eighteenth century. I conclude that the Governing Council interacted withseveral forums, both formally recognised as well as informal, in the colony. Over time, adjudication became increasingly dependent on the authority of the Governing Council. The combination of the political and legal roles contributed to the process of colonial state formation in Suriname. Studies of the practices of similar courts will clarify how the Dutch Empire successfully governed its diverse populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequences of economic downturns for states’ redistributive politics. We track state policies from 1980 through 2010 and illustrate how economic downturns led states to adopt budget-balancing policies by suppressing both the increased spending on programs benefiting the poor otherwise expected under Democratic Party control and the tax cuts for the wealthy otherwise expected under Republican Party control. We also undertake a natural experiment case study—comparing the forty Democratic and Republican governors in office right before (2007–2008) and after (2009–2010) the onset of the Great Recession. We find that Republican governors were less likely to propose spending and increased calls for spending cuts; yet, no similar shift in tax proposals was evident with continued calls for tax cuts to the wealthy. Democratic governors exhibited a similar pattern, but were less responsive and more likely to maintain their earlier policy proposals even after a significant downturn in the national economy. Together, these findings highlight how economic and political conditions interact with one another to shape “who gets what, when, and how from government,” as well as clarify that we must ask and answer these questions separately for taxing and spending to capture the complex politics of redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governors have always had to balance state interests with political party interests. However, governors’ role in the federal arena, which historically has had a significant bipartisan element, has shifted somewhat, today placing a greater emphasis on party interests. This change is one of the degree; it is less a sea change than a change in the salinity of the sea. I provide evidence of this move to more partisan behavior and explore two sets of interrelated factors that have influenced this change: party polarization in Congress and state legislatures and among voters, and the structure, activities and influence of the National Governors Association, Democratic Governors Association, and Republican Governors Association. This article represents an initial effort to tease out some of the varied causal effects and establish a framework for scholars to further explore the dual gubernatorial responsibilities of advancing state interests and party interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether the party affiliation of governors (Democrat or Republican) has an impact on the allocation of state expenditures. Exploiting gubernatorial election results from 1960 to 2012 and a Regression Discontinuity Design ( RDD), we find that Democratic governors allocate a larger share of their budget to health/hospitals and education sectors. We find no significant impact of the political party of governors on total spending, only on the allocation of funds. The results are robust to a wide range of controls and model specifications. ( JEL D72, H75, H72) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When political scandals erupt in the press, we usually blame misconduct by public officials, but these episodes are political events whose occurrence and severity also depend in part on the political and media context. Using data on U.S. governors, I show that several key factors affect the likelihood and intensity that alleged misconduct will be politicized by the opposition and publicized by the press. First, lower approval ratings, which decrease the cost of politicizing and publicizing an allegation, are generally associated with more frequent and intense media scandals. By contrast, competing news events can crowd potential scandals off the news agenda. However, no evidence is found that opposition control of state political institutions leads to more media scandal. These results suggest that the occurrence of media scandal depends more on circumstance than we typically assume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the involvement of former Mississippi governor William Winter's involvement with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History as a member of its Board of Trustees from 1957 to 2008. Winter is reportedly passionate about historical preservation who headed the campaign to preserve the Old Capitol building in Jackson. Also discussed are his leadership in the 2 Mississippi Museums Project.

In the vast majority of American states, governors have unrestricted authority to fill Senate vacancies, and in an average decade, one-third of all Americans have been represented by an appointed senator. Despite the importance of Senate appointments both theoretically and substantively, no published study has investigated the dynamics of gubernatorial selection. In this paper, we compile an original data set of Senate appointees as well as the list of the candidates the governor considered but did not select. We model the governor’s selection and discover that despite having no formal constraints on their appointment power, governors behave as constrained actors. In particular, we find that governors eschew the potential appointees who are closest to their policy views and instead appoint the candidate who is closest to the ideological position of the voters in their state. This effect is particularly pronounced when the governor is eligible for reelection within two years. These findings have both theoretical and normative implications for understanding Senate appointments, gubernatorial decision making, and the implicit power of the electorate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]